Minutes crept by, perhaps an entire hour, as Ferene stood, her eyes locked on the sight below her. The single house at the very bottom of the hill, set apart from the town. She needed to go there, but something held her back. Something told her to turn around and walk away. She could find Lana and the others, help them with whatever they were doing next. Go back to Taradira and become a soldier, become stronger. Find Linara, wherever she is, and thank her for everything, properly. She could run back north, beg to be let back into the stronghold, just to see Rilya again. She could do a number of things other than go and find out who her father truly was.

In the end, she needed to know. Her mother was long dead, but the idea of her father being alive, being just down that hill, and having answers to so many questions drew her forward. She took one step, then another, and found herself slowly but steadily walking through the village. Some people were out already, in the dawn, staring at her. Ferene kept walking, her eyes still focused entirely on her goal.

Passing the houses, she walked directly through the long, uneven grass until she was just outside the house, a few steps away from the wooden wall. Flowers surrounded it, some in the ground and others in boxes mounted to the outside of the walls. She stopped, taking in all the colors. It was warm and inviting, and she felt the fear and tension slip away. Letting out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding, Ferene approached the door, not knocking but just pushing it open and stepping inside.

Open shelves lined nearly every wall, with tables filling the gaps. Plants were everywhere, potted plants, what looked to be dried flowers and grasses sealed inside glass jars, trays of dirt with green sprouts reaching upwards, trays of various plants laying on their side as if for inspection. It was unlike any house Ferene had ever seen. In one corner sat a Hatharen, his ears sticking out from his yellow hair. He hunched over one of the many tables, holding a small knife in one hand and cutting a small object Ferene could not see. Ferene noted that he did not look like other Hatharen - his arms were thin, his shoulders narrow. He did not look like a warrior.

“Good, you’re here early. Extra work today. Grab a tray and get started.” He said, startling her. He didn’t look up from his work, his head towards the table, his back towards her. Ferene stood still, staring at him curiously. After several seconds, he stopped moving, then turned to glance at her. “Who are you?” He asked first, then his eyes opened wider, having realized she wasn’t human. “Why are you here?”

Not fear, not anger, but something else seized Ferene. A feeling, an emotion she couldn’t recognize. All the questions she wanted to ask him twisted around each other, fighting to be the first one spoken, the first one answered. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

“Selveren?” The name slid out of her, quietly.

“Yes, I’m Selveren.” He replied, looking at her expectantly.

“You’re my father.” It wasn’t a question. Something inside her told her that this man in front of her was her father. She didn’t know why, didn’t know how. She just knew.

Selveren frowned at her. “You aren’t Tilhana.”

Something inside her snapped. Words poured out of her. “My name is Ferene, my mother was a human, her name was Alyssa. She sold herself, and me, to a group of outlaws. I was raised by them, until I killed their leader and ran away. I never met another Hatharen until several months ago. I went to Yonthal, I met people from Treventhal. They told me about you. I went to Taradira, in Etsgras. She told me where to find you. You’re the only one who could be my father. I came here to find you. To find out why my mother had to do what she did.” She drew her short sword and pointed it at him, glaring at him through tears. “I need to know why she lived with men that hurt her. Why she had to die sick and surrounded by scum. Why I can’t understand your language, since nobody was there to teach it to me.” Her hand shook and tears stained her face.

Selveren placed the small knife he was holding on the table behind him, and crossed his hands in his lap. He was perfectly calm as he looked up at her. “You said your name was Ferene?”

She nodded. He stood up, walking across the room even as she kept the tip of her sword pointed at him. He picked up a jar that held a dried, sharp-looking orange flower. Ferene recognized it. The plant that Telhrian had given her, back in Yonthal, looked just like it, except that one had been white. Selveren turned towards her and smiled oddly. His mouth moved like it was an unfamiliar action. “Hatharen call this flower ferene. Humans call it the bird of paradise. Alyssa loved them.” Holding the jar, he walked back to his chair and sat down.

Her hand holding her sword wavered slightly. Even as she threatened him, he seemed to be unaware of it. “Why weren’t you there for her? Why weren’t you there for me?”

Even as she put emphasis on the questions, the accusations, nearly shouting, he simply shrugged, his eyebrows raised slightly. “I didn’t know. She was here to help me and learn, as an assistant, part of my deal with the people of Riverhill. One day she vanished. I asked her parents, and they thought that I would know. We concluded that she ran away. I didn’t know why, but maybe it was because of you.”

Swallowing, Ferene waited, taking three deep breaths to calm herself. The anger was there again, threatening to spill over. She felt like she was on the edge of losing control, of attacking him, stabbing him again and again for his complete non-answers to her questions. “Why would I cause her to run away?”

Selveren turned his back on her, leaning over his desk again, taking his knife to one of the small, round objects and splitting it open. “That girl never properly understood me. She was afraid of her own failures, certain I would punish her for them, or send her away. I don’t know why, since I never did. If she viewed a child as something I wouldn’t want, she would have been afraid to reveal it to me. I say this in hindsight. Not something I would have considered at the time. Recorded information on interspecies breeding is lacking, and this being one of the outcomes of my failed experiment was not on my mind. I was trying to fix it. Her vanishing was an inconvenience at the time, set me back several days. Not that it mattered in the long term, since I failed to achieve my goal and her staying wouldn’t have changed that. It simply isn’t possible.”

Ferene screamed, throwing her weapon against the wall. The blade struck the surface sideways, falling to the floor. Selveren turned around to look at her, still only curious rather than alarmed. “You…you sound like you care more about your experiment than the mother of your child.”

“I do.” He said, nodding. “I’m trying to save my entire people. I did not have time for distractions.”

“You had sex with my mother.”

“Of course.” He nodded again.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Ferene pushed down the urge to attack him again. She clenched her fists at her sides. “Why did you do that?”

“I managed to activate my own breeding cycle. I thought it was a breakthrough, at the time. I asked Alyssa if she wanted to celebrate with me. She did.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, the day after I realized that what I had done was create a mixture that replicated the effect that the females have on males, which is useless for procreation between Hatharen. I needed to be able to activate the female’s breeding cycle, whi-”

“My mother. What happened to Alyssa?”

“She continued helping me for the next few weeks before she vanished.”

Ferene simply stared at him. Thoughts of him had haunted her, on and off, her entire life. Sadness, hatred, bitterness. She wondered if he would be apologetic, begging her for forgiveness, or angry, blaming her or hating her for who she was or what she had done. Instead, he just…didn’t even dismiss her. He just didn’t seem to care. “I’m your daughter.” She said, weakly. The anger had built up to the peak, but broke. She suddenly lost the energy to be mad at him. Selveren didn’t even seem to think of her at all, even as she stood directly in front of him.

“I learned after my daughter was born that I’m a terrible father. It’s not something I have an interest in.”

“What?”

“In Treventhal, you have a sister. A half-sister, to be more accurate. Tilhana.” A memory floated through Ferene’s mind. A Hatharen approaching her, inspecting her, and turning away without a word. Yellow hair and dark green eyes. Just like Selveren’s. She clenched her jaw tightly. She was an outsider to her own people to the point where she had met her blood family, and been rejected. “Ah, your grandparents…should still be alive, I believe. Alyssa’s parents, I mean. Here in the town. If you want to talk to them.”

“Why would I want to talk to them?”

“Well, they are your grandparents.”

“You are my father.”

He frowned at her. “Yes, but…”

“I think I met your daughter. My sister. Briefly. She looked at me and then left. It was after a battle north of the mountains. I don’t thi-“

“You fought north of the mountains?” He shouted, suddenly standing up, his face right next to hers, his hands on her shoulders.

“Y-yes.” Ferene flinched back, her arm going limp.

Selveren let go of her, stepping back. “The beasts! You fought the beasts? You weren’t paralyzed? Tell me!”

“They made me sick. I vomited after. A lot. When I look at them, I feel ill. I don’t know how long I can fight them for, but I killed a Direag once, and-“

“You killed a Direag?” He was smiling at her, his face shining with some emotion. “A hybrid killed a Direag. Amazing! Tell me about that. All the details.”

Ferene recalled the story of her fight with the wounded creature. Seeing it at a distance, the inexplicable feeling of unease she felt. Knowing that it was already injured did little to dampen Selveren’s enthusiasm. Now, he was interested in her. His questions went further. He wanted to know every detail of both of her encounters with the beasts, and she did her best to answer his questions.

“So even close proximity to the dead bodies causes sickness? Or was it a lingering effect from when you were close to the living ones?”

“I don’t know.”

He held a small book in one hand, and a pen in the other. Taking notes. His attention was entirely focused on her now. No longer disinterested. Her father was hanging on her every word.

“I was banished from the stronghold in the end. Because I can’t have children.”

Selveren’s expression turned hard. Anger. “Idiots! You are part of the solution! Humans are part of the solution! We need humans in the strongholds. To buy time. They don’t need to fight, just be there. Doctors, farmers. Make more space for the Hatharen. And make hybrids. Hybrids can fight. You proved that! There’s too much pride. Old ways, closed minds. You’re just as strong as any fighter. If fewer Hatharen die, the numbers can stabilize. Our people could be saved. You are proof of that!”

Ferene once more felt a swirl of emotions. Selveren’s focus on her, pride over her was all because he saw her as a solution to a problem. But she remembered Tahrean’s tale of the history of the Hatharen, and she remembered her family, and how they were forced together simply for the purpose of being able to have children, and her inability to fit with that was the reason she needed to leave. Selveren didn’t care about her aside from wanting her to change that, yet changing that almost seemed like enough.

He was obsessed and only cared about how she fit into his obsession.

With a sign of resignation, she slid her sword back into the sheath on her belt. Her father was not evil. He did not mean any harm to her or her mother. He was just…strange. She couldn’t hate him, instead suddenly finding herself disinterested in him.

It was, in the end, disappointing. The answers she got were simple. Her mother ran away from Selveren. It was her mother being foolish that resulted in her life being the way it was. There was nothing Selveren could have done to change that.

She answered more of his questions, and then left the house. Wandering around the outside, she found the plant with the flowers her mother had named her after. The thin, pointed petals almost matched the color of her hair. If her mother had just stayed here, where these flowers she loved were, what kind of person would Ferene be today?

Another deep breath. What was left, now? For a moment she considered finding her grandparents, but decided against it. She came here for answers about her father, and found them, however lacking they might be. Her mothers parents could only tell her more about her mother, and she didn’t have any questions about her. Slowly, she walked to the river and considered her next move.

She wanted a larger purpose than just killing whatever random criminals she met on the road. As many of them as there were, as much as someone needed to remove that evil from the world, other thoughts lodged themselves in her mind over the course of her journey. The monsters on the other side of the mountain wall, and the war to the west. Taradira, a Hatharen, leads a human army against another human army, leaving her people to fight the beasts without her. That bothered Ferene.

Linara presented another question. Something happened to her to drive her away from a stronghold, and she even thought that Ferene would be better off never meeting other Hatharen. What was her story? What was her relation to the human kingdom of Olentor and why did she hunt former soldiers?

To Ferene, the human lands were her home, despite all the pain and suffering she had been through in them. Taradira, Linara, and Selveren were outsiders that did not belong. For all she felt that she did not fit in with the humans, those three fit in even less.

If she traveled north, she would end up relatively close to Olentor. It might be possible to track down Linara from there, or find out more about her. Before she could do that, however, it would be good to not be wearing the jacket from one of their soldiers. Though the garment was slightly too short, it was well made and served Ferene well the last few months. She’d hate to get rid of it. Turning back towards the small village, she walked up the hill. The first person she met - a young man coming down the road towards Selveren’s house - directed her towards the village’s tailor.

Ferene left the tailor’s house with a cloak over her shoulders, hanging down to her knees. It hid her armor and most of her weapons, but the large sword on her back she wore on the outside of it. The man was happy to trade for the jacket and make some small adjustments to the cloak to fit her frame.

Above her, the sky was cloudy. A fog bank slid down from the top of the hill, leaving everything it touched slightly damp. Ferene smiled to herself as she took the first few steps north.

When she first met Linara, her life changed. She could never go back to how it was before. That thought had lingered in the back of her mind for months, and now came to the front. Ferene wanted to find her, wanted to thank her, wanted to tell her all about what had happened to her. With a new goal in mind, she set off of the next part of her journey.